Adap.tv Introduces Linear TV To Its Ad-Buying Platform

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Looks like video advertising platform Adap.tv will be doing more to live up to the “TV” part of its name. The company is announcing that ad buyers won’t just be purchasing desktop and mobile ads through its Audience Path product, but linear TV commercials (i.e., regular TV commercials) too.

Adap.tv (which, like TechCrunch, was acquired by AOL) says its TV ad inventory has a potential reach of 90 million US households across nearly 100 cable networks. The company declined to get more specific about where the ads are going to run, except that it’s “an inventory mix from MVPDs, and cable and network TV programmers.”

The company isn’t quite pitching this as a replacement to the traditional TV ad-buying model, but it says its approach combines brings the advantages of digital buying to TV, going “far beyond” traditional targeting. To do that, Audience Path uses data from Nielsen and Rentrak, as well as consumer purchase behavior — for example, Adap.tv says it can target males between 18 and 35 who like mixed martial arts or a particular type of alcohol.

“This is not meant to supplant the big upfront TV buys, though there are certainly areas where automation makes sense for that as well,” said Senior Vice President of Programmatic TV Dan Ackerman via email. “Programmatic TV is really about bringing digital and TV much closer; marketers want to be able to better align their budgets across screens more simply, instead of having to deal with digital and TV buys separately.”

The company says that Magna Global, the investment and intelligence arm of IPG Mediabrands, has already run combined digital and TV campaigns on the platform.

OverviewAOL is a global advertising-supported Web company, with display advertising network in the U.S., a substantial worldwide audience, and a suite of popular Web brands and products.
The company's strategy focuses on increasing the scale and sophistication of its advertising platform and growing the size and engagement of its global online audience through leading products and programming.
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